tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16476435237222018292024-10-06T23:45:49.397-07:00Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-84236116666569006732013-02-01T01:40:00.003-08:002013-02-01T01:40:48.746-08:00

Google voice search For Chrome (there is also a version for Android phones) Open Dyslexic  Font - not enough good things can be said about this font Bookshare  must have someone certify the disability Ginger Software - standalone and for Chrome  Speckie Spell check add on for Internet Explorer The Assistive Technology Blog has information on technology for many

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-46420379143023924052012-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:002012-06-20T07:00:03.047-07:00

1) African-American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults Wisconsin Dept Public Ed's List Onondaga County Public Library 2) Latio Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults BookJoy About.com 3)  Asian-American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults Colorin' Colorado About.com 4) Native American Authors of Books for Children and Young

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-7405956069669407042011-12-01T08:47:00.000-08:002011-12-01T08:47:00.653-08:00

Since I've already confessed my love of Globe Genie , I thought I'd post something I just heard about on Google Maps.   You can now take virtual tours of a whole host of parks and landmarks. Here's some I stumbled across myself: The Detroit Zoo, Detriot, MI, USA Balboa Park, San Deigo, CA, USA The following (and many more) can be found on Google Map helpsLiberty Park, Jersey

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-9556527948743010592011-11-30T07:11:00.000-08:002011-11-30T07:11:00.078-08:00

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-54459649793502724292011-11-29T07:47:00.000-08:002011-11-29T07:47:00.482-08:00

In scouts we do a lot of knot tying.  The downside of this is that the parents usually have to learn them first!  I don't know about you, but squinting at a lot of knot diagrams just doesn't always help.  That's why this site, animatedknots.com, can be a huge help.  Alternately, Boy's Life magazine has some knot videos online for the more common knots. Knots have a lot of

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-53145263882417332672011-11-28T07:19:00.000-08:002011-11-28T15:21:22.512-08:00

For lactose intolerant people, we have made homemade butter puzzlingly often.  It's been a favorite activity among many groups we've been involved with though.  I must admit it is easy and fun. If you have never tried it, here's how it's done. You'll need: 1 small container of  heavy cream Disposable mini condiment container or mini plastic storage

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-9887079206495565792011-11-27T07:02:00.000-08:002011-11-27T07:02:00.716-08:00

Now considering my disdain for slime, why would I recommend an activity involving rodent bones and owl vomit?  Well, simply put it's a lot more fun than it sounds (and the pellets are sterilized). Summer campers thoroughly occupied The idea is to probe the pellets for the mice or bird bones and attempt to reassemble the skeleton to find out what the owl has been eating. &

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-65460236341310726652011-11-26T07:18:00.000-08:002011-11-27T03:13:17.891-08:00

We tried this out today: Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake: Went a lot faster than I thought and looks really nice despite being a bit messy and crooked with the cuts.  It's a fairly forgiving project.   Considering we used half sheets rather than full, it is surprisingly huge, measuring about a foot across.  In light of my lifelong love of teeny origami, I might try to make some minis

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-81713961429311917382011-11-25T07:45:00.000-08:002011-11-27T03:18:12.934-08:00

Teaching Sites khanacademy.org  online exercises from basic to advanced, math instructional videos mathforgrownups.com coolmath.com Worksheets Times tables Various Math Games apples4theteacher.com Timez Attack - an excellent software download, available in a full feature free version and a prettied up paid version.  Covers multiplication, division, addition and&nbsp

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-55740822879938260792011-11-24T06:13:00.000-08:002011-11-24T06:13:00.210-08:00

(In teeny origami) Turkey 1 (left) Turkey 2  (right) Happy Thanksgiving!

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-17234324014560250842011-11-23T07:44:00.000-08:002011-11-23T07:44:00.868-08:00

This is filed under experiments I'm not sure about yet.    So okay, confession time.  I am a lazy crafter.   As in capital "L" Laaaazy.  If  I have to hand sew, deal-breaker time, man.  But then there's the times where I could just run over to the machine and stitch a quick line, but oh, it means getting up out of my chair and changing the

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-12302700125643915872011-11-22T07:10:00.000-08:002011-11-22T07:10:00.877-08:00

A must-see US exhibit that makes of the round of presidential libraries and local museums is the Miniature White House.   We caught it last spring and it has to been seen to be believed. (And I took several dark, blurry photos of it. ) See photos of it here and here.   The facebook page of it's permanent home is here. And a handy video from one of stops:

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-58904406961896218942011-11-21T06:49:00.000-08:002011-11-21T06:49:00.721-08:00

Who doesn't love slime? ooey gooey science-y **raises hand** But it's inevitable isn't it?   I do recall getting slime out of gumball machines as a kid.  On purpose.  It seemed to the thing to do at the time.  There are two main varieties of slime: polymer and non-Newtonian fluid. So if your little grossologist must have slime, here's how to do it. Polymer slime

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-53526675216016991142011-11-20T07:54:00.001-08:002012-03-05T19:50:42.879-08:00

We made this one for a scout merit badge a while ago so I have no in progress pictures, but it's pretty straight forward fortunately.   I don't recall where we first read about this, but it is loosely based on an ancient Egyptian instrument called a Sistrum.  (For a history check here. ) I was feeling a little lazy that day so when we found a similar project on Family Fun, we

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-48005154905261530192011-11-19T07:33:00.000-08:002011-11-19T07:33:00.582-08:00

I could spend all day watching this channel . Note: While some of these are better suited to older kids (if you actually expect them to under the concepts behind them) they do have plenty of younger kid appeal to those in to drawing. A Möbius strip story: Fractal Doodles!! X2  (Yes, someday I'll get over fractals, I promise. ) In truth, I obsess over these

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-60871714050599778012011-11-18T06:54:00.000-08:002011-11-18T06:54:00.235-08:00

1) A fall leaf "bouquet."  Gather enough in a bud vase and they will look like a flower.  Choose the freshest you can find because they only last about a day even with water. 2) The wonders of Mod Podge. 3) The classic leaf rubbing.

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-80425310526823449412011-11-17T07:31:00.000-08:002011-11-18T21:32:31.861-08:00

So to recap, we read a lot instructions online for making sugar crystals.  We figured there's no beating science you can eat.   I found there were a variety of comments on some of the posts ranging from "it so easy!"  to "it didn't work at all." We scrubbed an empty spaghetti sauce jar since it seemed like a good size for a long string of sugar.   I considered using string as

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-47688151436856241832011-11-16T07:25:00.000-08:002011-11-16T07:25:00.384-08:00

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-9080734365469314822011-11-15T07:20:00.000-08:002011-11-15T07:20:00.964-08:00

Next Project:  Rock Candy To start we used these instructions for our reference starting point.  About.com cooking About.com chemistry About.com candy making Wikihow.com Exploratorium.edu What we learned. It's a lot easier than you think Skewers not string You will waste a lot of sugar until you get the hang of it It takes time and patience Vanilla extract +

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-5368804236104687602011-11-14T13:19:00.000-08:002011-11-15T03:37:58.105-08:00

Remember my earlier post on fractals?   Well, I'm truly hopeless at this point, so I need to share my obsession. So what are fractals anyway? Wiki says:  a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole, a property called self-similarity.Well (for the non math people

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-9800412080406881012011-11-13T07:26:00.000-08:002011-11-13T07:26:00.523-08:00

My son always does better with multi-sensory learning.  We've found that videos that go with our lessons are always helpful for his understanding of concepts.   I've found several sites that host usual educational videos.  Of all of these resources are free. How Stuff Works All subjects for kids to adults Khan Academy math videos and math exercises Hulu Science & Tech

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-63501322586939652732011-11-12T06:52:00.000-08:002011-11-12T06:52:00.649-08:00

Though I'm amazed (and jealous) by what this school allows.   Whacking each other with faux swords?  Climbing around on a picnic table?   Say it ain't so!  /sarcasm My son's former school has banned that oh-so-dangerous, uber-violent game known as "Tag." *Sigh* I seriously wish I could do something like this on a smaller scale for my cubscouts.  Hmmm.

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-66818721908022811482011-11-11T07:16:00.000-08:002011-11-12T22:09:39.250-08:00

And finally the completed tree house. The Treehouse As you can see we had a last minute addition. The sunshade Once all the constructing and gluing was done, Junior thought something wasn't quite right.  What about all the sun up in a tree?  What we really needed was a roof; or better yet, a canopy.  So we went digging through the fabric scraps and found a length of

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-9765614239593139552011-11-10T07:12:00.000-08:002011-11-10T07:12:00.913-08:00

So back to the treehouse.  So we had glued in the top platform and decided it was way too far off the ground for a ladder to reach.  The length it was already caused it twist under our model child.  So we added a lower platform and fasten the bottom of the ladder to it.  Junior also decided that safety rails were a must so we added those as well.   We tied a

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1647643523722201829.post-25767480614767918322011-11-09T09:38:00.000-08:002011-11-09T09:38:00.202-08:00

What started out as an attempt to combine art with math for a fabulous home school assignment, ended up a little bonkers. It was innocent enough at first with paper and scissors and colored in Sierpinski Triangles. Then I found this site.  (Also check out the enlargements of those beautiful models shown mid-way down and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and look at those too

Gigihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05494457217635716776noreply@blogger.com0